Apple went from its 8th highest close to its 19th in one day

According to Terry Gregory, who keeps track of such things at AAPLInvestors.net, Apple AAPL was set to register its 8th highest close of all time — $408.25 — Wednesday before the selling started. By 4 p.m., it had fallen to $402.64 a share, its 19th highest close.

Subscribers to the theory of maximum pain — which holds that stocks whose options are traded on a weekly basis tend to close each Friday at a price that rewards institutions selling puts and calls and penalizes investors buying them — will note that in Wednesday’s action, Apple’s share price fell $5.61 closer to max pain, which currently stands at $400.

Given that there are 929.41 million shares of Apple out there, that $5.61 drop shaved more than $5.2 billion off the company’s market cap.